Kudos to Eden and David Glickman, of Woodmere, for hosting a fabulous brunch last week Sunday – June 6, 2010 – celebrating Puah’s 19 years of dedicated services helping couples become parents. Eden prepared an amazing spread of salads, delicious home dishes and baked goods that rivaled the finest catered affair. The presentation (fit for royalty!!!) clearly showed the time, the effort, the heart, that went into making the event a great success.

Rabbi Zvi Ralbag, Moreh De’asra of the Island shul, relayed his experiences with Puah and the families he’s counseled. Susan Settenbrino, a family law attorney and host of The Dov Hikind Show, shared her powerful personal journey with the luncheon attendees. Lea Davidson, Executive Director of Puah Institute, USA, spoke about the specific role of Puah, the first organization to help couples with infertility and women’s health from and its exceptional halachic and medical guidance. Puah plays a vital role in communities around the globe helping couples find halachic and medical fertility solutions. If you’d like to contribute or find out more you can visit them at www.puahonline.org, or call them at 718.336.0603

[The SECRET to great cheesecake is that all of the ingredients must be room temperature. Leave them out for at least 6 hours. If I am planning to make the cake in the morning I leave the ingredients out overnight.]

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a nine inch spring form pan and cover the bottom and sides with a nice dusting of the cookie crumbs.

Beat the cream cheese, sour cream, 1 cup sugar, butter, cornstarch and vanilla on a low speed until it is combined. Add the eggs one at a time beating after each addition until combined.

In a separate clean and dry bowl melt the chocolate in the microwave 30 seconds at a time until it is melted. Stir in the 2 remaining tablespoons of sugar, 2 cups of the cheesecake batter and the cocoa powder until it is combined. The mixture will be thicker than the plain cheesecake batter. Pour half of the plain batter into the spring-form pan and then drop thick dollops of the chocolate batter all around. Repeat with the rest of the batters. Take a knife and make figure 8 patterns through the batter without touching the crumbs on the bottom until the cake looks marbleized.

Bake in a 350 oven for 1 hour. Cover the cake loosely with a tented piece of tinfoil after 30 minutes of baking. This will prevent the cake from getting too brown. After it is finished baking turn off the oven and let it sit in there for another hour. Allow the cake to cool for 4 hours and then refrigerate until serving.

Do not worry if the top of the cake cracks. There are so may ways to cover the cracks. My favorite way is to shave chocolate over the top of the cake. All you need is any type of chocolate bar and a vegetable peeler. Just hold the bar in your hand over the cake and start peeling. Make sure your cake is completely cooled before you do this or your shavings will melt.